A younger man who dedicated three San Diego killings, together with two gang-motivated murders and the taking pictures dying of his girlfriend, was sentenced Wednesday to 98 years to life in state jail.
Jorge Manuel Sanchez, 20, pleaded responsible final month to homicide and manslaughter counts in 4 shootings: three have been deadly and one injured a 16-year-old boy.
Sanchez pleaded responsible to homicide for the Aug. 1, 2019, taking pictures of 57-year-old Marco Magana in Mountain View and one other homicide rely for the Feb. 8, 2020, taking pictures of 19-year-old Leah Posey at a Southcrest park. The taking pictures that killed Posey additionally left a teenage boy injured, and Sanchez pleaded responsible to an tried homicide rely for that sufferer.
Sanchez was arrested July 15, 2020, the day he shot and killed his 19-year-old girlfriend, Emily Cortez, in a Mountain View condominium they shared, in keeping with prosecutors. He pleaded responsible to involuntary manslaughter for Cortez’s dying.
At Sanchez’s sentencing listening to in San Diego Superior Court docket, Magana’s sister, Monica Magana, mentioned her brother had no connection to Sanchez and was strolling dwelling from a taco store when he was shot.
Posey’s father, Michael Horne, mentioned in court docket that Sanchez had been aiming for the 16-year-old boy who was injured, however took his daughter’s life as an alternative.
Sanchez was 17 years outdated on the time of Magana and Posey’s deaths and 18 years outdated when Cortez was killed. His plea included admissions to allegations that the killings of Magana and Posey have been dedicated to profit a gang and that he used a firearm in all of the crimes.
About 4 months after Sanchez was arrested in reference to Cortez’s dying, the San Diego Police Division introduced his arrest within the different two deadly shootings, together with the arrests of a number of others in a spate of gang-related homicides that occurred between April 2018 and February 2020 in San Diego and Nationwide Metropolis.
Seven different defendants face costs together with homicide, tried homicide and conspiracy to commit homicide for his or her alleged roles within the killings.
Deputy District Lawyer Miriam Hemming mentioned Sanchez and his co-defendants “snuck round at the hours of darkness, armed with weapons, and snuck up on unsuspecting strangers” in the course of the fee of these crimes.
“There may be this sentiment or tradition on the market on the earth the place younger males suppose that by becoming a member of a avenue gang and terrorizing strangers of their group, that in some way makes them stronger or more durable or extra of a person, or extra accepted, or extra of a hero, ” the prosecutor mentioned. “As Mr. Sanchez is sitting right here right now, I hope he understands that his actions have been fairly the alternative.’’
Sanchez didn’t make a press release in the course of the listening to, however certainly one of his protection attorneys, Peter Will, instructed Choose Carlos Armour that his shopper had a “real, deep stage of unhappiness, not due to the sentence he’s going to face, however due to the ache and struggling that he has prompted.”
